4. Avoid crazy prints. Busy patterns can be distracting to the viewer’s eye and pulls attention away from your face. A successful portrait makes a connection between the viewer and the subject, so you want the focus to be on you and your face, not competing with your clothes.

5. Accessorize. The little details make a big difference. Really think about your accessories and choose pieces that you love. Don’t forget about these details when styling your kids, and pay attention to things like shoes and socks.

For the Family: Use the techniques above as well as these when building the family look.

6. Aim for cohesive, not matchy-matchy. We all remember the days of family photos where the whole family is wearing jeans and white tops barefoot on the beach. Although, that does make it cohesive, it doesn’t celebrate each individual personality. My biggest advice is to look at the outfits all together as a whole. They don’t have to match, but they do need to look good next to each other.

If you want, you can pull in little elements from each individual that do match, but make it subtle. For example, Mom’s shoes might match daughter’s hair accessory, and that color might also be seen in Dad’s shirt. This is where little pops of color could work nicely and add some pizazz.

7. Start with Mom. If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. It is usually easiest to start with Mom’s outfit choice and build around that.

Hair and Makeup:

8. Makeup: Obviously, this doesn’t apply to kids and dads, but if you fall into the category of someone who normally wears makeup, just wear a little more than you usually do. Don’t go overboard with this, you want to look like yourself, but a little more than you would typically wear usually works great. If you are like me and typically consider chapstick you lipstick, definitely opt for the real lipstick.

9. Hair: You know your hair best, so do your hair how you feel it looks good, but if you are deciding between hair up and down, down is definitely the way to go. Hair has a lovely way of framing your face, and a little hair blowing in the breeze all of a sudden takes a portrait to another level.